T. S. Sastry

On the equatorial electrojet influence on geomagnetic pulsation amplitudes

Abstract It is well known that several types of geomagnetic pulsations show a significant amplitude enhancement near the dip equator due to the daytime equatorial electrojet. In the present study, the dependence of this enhancement on the period and type of geomagnetic variations is examined. The results show that, in general, the amplitude enhancement appears to be more or less uniform, amounting to a factor of 2.0–2.5, over a wide range of periods. However, for pulsations, there is a fairly sharp cut-off of the equatorial enhancement around a 20 s period, the shorter period end of Pc3 pulsations. Further, shorter period pulsations ( F -region.

A study of pearl pulsations in the equatorial region of India

Abstract Pearl pulsations in the equatorial region, despite their relative paucity, are known to exhibit definite features in their diurnal, seasonal and annual occurrence patterns. In the present study, attempts are made to examine and bring out in detail some more aspects of these pulsations recorded at Choutuppal (Geomagnetic latitude: 7°28′N) over a period of nine years during 1967–1975. The mid-period (t) of pearls is found to bear a linear relation to the pearl repetition period (T) and is of the form T = 70t + 11.2. The periods of pearls are seen to be influenced by the average magnetic activity level prevailing during the preceding few days rather than that existing on the day of pearl occurrence. There is an increase in the mid-frequency of pearls that occurred succeeding a magnetic disturbance particularly when the disturbance persisted over some days. The amplitude ratio (Hx/Hy) averaged for each two-hourly interval is seen to attain a value of unity around local midnight and decrease towards the dawn and morning hours. From these results, namely the dependence of mid-frequency of pearls on the average magnetic activity (represented by (Σ Kp >) during the preceding few days and the occurrence of shorter period pearls even after a few days following a magnetic storm, it is suggested that the plasmapause takes much longer time to re-establish to the quiet time position. In the alternative, it may be visualized that possible presence of localized regions of high plasma density gradients inside the plasmasphere after the cessation of a storm might provide favourable conditions for the generation of shorter period pearls.

Dependence of declination-change of geomagnetic storm sudden commencement on local time and season

Abstract The dependence of declination-change at the time of geomagnetic storm sudden commencement on local time with seasons is investigated in the case of ten low and middle latitude observatories. While at Alibag and Hermanus and to some extent at Watheroo the deviation angles of SC-vectors, measured in the horizontal plane from the local magnetic meridian, show a systematic local-time variation with seasons, no such variation is observed at the other observatories. These results are examined in relation to the seasonal changes in the incident direction of the solar plasma stream responsible for SCs.